Fallout Equestria: Homelands

Chapter 10: The Old Road

By Somber

“We need to turn this contraption around, now! Right now!” Charity snapped, thrusting a hoof behind them as the Whiskey Express chuff-chuffed its way south along the concrete road. She stared, eyelid twitching. “Do you understand what I am saying? The way we need to be going is the way opposite from the one on which we are headed!” The tractor continued rolling merrily along the fragmented concrete freeway. Having all four lanes to itself made navigating the abandoned steam tractor hulks easy enough for Precious to manage with one eye closed and a single hand on the steering wheel. “I am going to start charging you a five bottlecap tax per mile!” the yellow unicorn filly demanded imperiously.

Scotch ignored her. Since they’d left, they’d been hounded by the Blood Legion. Fortunately, the Whiskey Express was faster than their larger, heavier tractors, but she could still see the dirty plumes of their coal-fired engines behind them. They’d have to pull far enough away that their own exhaust wouldn’t be visible–

Charity gripped her, her pupils tiny as her eyes were wide. “Are you listening to me? Why aren’t you listening to me?” she asked, shaking her. “We need to be going… which way is Equestria? West? West! Whichever way is west is where we need to be going! So unless this way is west, we need to be going another way!” Charity babbled on. “Or back to the sea and we can find a boat or something. Or I can find a boat!”

Majina pulled Charity off Scotch. “Hey, let her go!” The pair flopped back on their carefully stowed supplies. “Can’t you see she’s sick?”

“She had a building dropped on her,” Pythia said tersely as she stared out at the grass.

Charity yanked her head out of Majina’s grip, staring at Scotch like she was diseased. “Oh Goddesses, you are following in Blackjack’s hoofsteps, aren’t you?” She stared at the road as if calculating just how many bones she’d break if she jumped out right then.

“Does it ever stop talking?” Skylord shouted at Scotch as he kept pace, flying besides the tractor and keeping watch ahead. “Ever?”

“Eventually,” Scotch Tape answered, rubbing her aching chest. She felt hot, despite the cool wind blowing through her mane.

“And you’re sure we need it?” Skylord asked, glancing back at Charity. “All it does it babble.”

“She’s a friend. Kind of. I might owe her money,” Scotch Tape replied, and Skylord just groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Charity, I’m not sure an Atoli would agree to take you–” Majina began, reasonably.

“What the heck is an ‘Atoli’? I’ll just tell a zebra to take me back on their boat and pay them something shiny when I get back,” Charity said matter-of-factly. “But only if we’re not going away from the ocean!”

“No, I mean that with how far it is and the risks involved, none of them would be willing to take you–”

“Everyone has her price,” Charity countered. “You just have to offer a big enough number and people will do anything.” She thrust a hoof at Skylord. “You! I will pay you a thousand caps for you to take me to a boat back to Equestria, payment in full on arrival.”

“It’s talking as if it wants something from me,” Skylord muttered. “Can I eat it?”

Scotch wondered a moment just what price a pound of Charity would run before she mentally smacked herself… lightly. “No. Probably not.”

“Skylord doesn’t speak Pony,” Majina told her. “Most people here don’t.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Charity asked, then shouted at Skylord, still in Pony, “Do. You. Want. Gold? Take! Me! Home!” She paused and dug around in Majina’s bag for a gold imperio and grinned widely. “Let me borrow this at negative interest, okay?”

“It’s… propositioning me?” Skylord asked, and then yelled back, “I. Am. Not. That. Kind. Of. Griffon!”

“See! We have communication. Everyone speaks Pony so long as you say it slowly and clearly.” Majina shut down, clearly stumped by ‘Charity logic’.

Scotch shook her head. “He’s not. How did you even get here?” Scotch asked as the filly started to put the coin in a saddlebag she didn’t have before reluctantly returning it to Majina.

“Well, the day you four left, the Hoof seemed to become the number one tourist destination for zebras,” Charity said. “Not your usual, normal stripes. No, these guys could barely talk sensible Pony. I even had some prints made. Made four caps on each. They were all interested in what happened. Where’d the city go? What had made the ‘evil city of evilness’ go away? And so I told them all about Blackjack and you. At a modest fee, of course,” she added.

“So how’d you get here?” Scotch repeated, brows furrowed. Pythia listened intently, as if hanging on every word.

“I’m getting to it! Some zebras approached me. Said they needed a big diamond for something, and that if I could get it to the zebra lands, we’d be rich,” she said, and then added, “Of course I asked for half payment up front, and I got it. More gold than I’d ever seen. Bars of the stuff. And I don’t care if we use bottle caps now, eventually Equestria’s going back to a gold standard and I want to be ready!” She rubbed her hooves together. “I had it all worked out. Get some alicorns, and I’d buy gems cheaply here, teleport and sell them to the zebras high, and find something worthwhile there and bring it back. I’d make a fortune!

“After that, it was just a matter of getting the diamond, getting purple and green alicorns with an entrepreneurial spirit, and I was set to launch my bold new enterprise. ‘Charity Transportation’,” she said, spreading her hooves wide, her eyes shimmering with avaricious vision. “And underneath it ‘For a modest fee’. ‘Cause I ain’t a Charity,” she added, pursing her lips a moment as she eyed them. “And it worked. One of the greens did some of their freaky mind magic, and poof. Off we went.”

“And you came along why?” Scotch asked.

“Well, I didn’t want those nine to take my payment and stay in the zebra lands. Apparently there’s a whole section of that town back there for freaks like them. Besides, I needed to check the markets, and the zebras asked. Wanted to meet me in person. Said they were impressed at how I pulled it all together.” Her smile faded. “But when we appeared, we were surrounded by zebras. Not the ones I’d done business with. The alicorns had used all their magic teleporting us across the world. They were just too slow getting a shield up. The zebras knew when and where we’d appear. They shot Lightbulb, the purple, ten seconds after we materialized. One they kept alive ‘as an example for the bridge’. The rest,” she swallowed and scowled, hugging herself tightly. “They said I was your friend and that I’d be a good hostage. They forced me to drink something and wrapped me up. Next thing I know I’m with all of you,” she finished, glancing around before pointing a hoof at Scotch Tape. “If all this isn’t somehow Blackjack’s fault, I’ll eat my mane.” She glared at them. “How’d all of you get here anyway? We’d pretty much written you off for dead.”

Majina inhaled, when Scotch cut in flatly, “It doesn’t matter. What matters is there’s a whole bunch of kill-crazy jerks that are after me. If they think you’re my friend, they’re after you too.” Majina hissed through her teeth like a viper glaring furiously at Scotch.

“Sweet!” Precious shouted over her shoulder. “Someone take the wheel. I got the perfect plan! We beat up Charity and throw her off the trailer. They won’t think she’s our friend, and we won’t have to listen to her whine, and she can limp back to the town that’s full of kill-crazy jerks and ask the pirate to take her back home and trust that she doesn’t feed you to her shark-monster daughter!”

“What?” Charity shouted in alarm, flailing a hoof at them. “That’s a horrible plan. I’m charging you fifty bits for horrible plan making!”

Precious beamed back at her, an egregiously self-satisfied grin on her muzzle. “Good luck collecting.”

Charity glared back, “I’ll just deduct it from your ‘hoard’ when we get back.”

Precious’s eyes popped wide in shock at the threat of such a thing. “You wouldn’t!” she gasped, then glowered down at the steering wheel. “Of course you would.”

They nearly ploughed into a rusted wreck, and Skylord grabbed the wheel, jerking on it and steering them away from the hulk. “Eyes on the road, lizard!” he snapped.

“Don’t call me a lizard, you turkey… cat… thing!” Precious countered, snatching the wheel back from him and returning her eyes to the road. “Heh, turkeycat. That’s a good one!”

Charity pressed her hooves into her face, the yellow unicorn groaning and rocking a little as Majina gave her shoulder a comforting pat. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t really get bad till we run into a megaspell.”

The great thing about the open plains was they could see for miles. The problem was that anyone else with the slightest elevation would be able to see them, too. Sure, they weren’t waving a ‘Blood Legion sucks!’ flag above them, but mentally noting the prime sniping positions afforded by every silo that loomed on the edge of the road made her cringe. They waited till dark, when it would be impossible to see the smoke from the stack, before finding a place to crash. They found one singular, monolithic silo with a concrete skirt that kept the razorgrass at bay before making camp behind it.

Then Scotch got busy dying.

Her brow burned with fever as she coughed again and again, trying to suck in air which never quite reached her lungs. She coughed and coughed again, and yet nothing came up. They didn’t dare risk a fire, so Scotch curled up next to the still-hot boiler for warmth. Majina tried to make razorgrass tea, but it tasted vile and did nothing to help her raking hacks. She curled up in a blanket, and tried to choke quietly, not sure what could be lurking in the night.

Charity climbed up and plopped down next to her. “This sucks,” she said as she stared off at the moon rising above the horizon, transforming the razorgrass into shadowy fur and the distant silos into gleaming tombstones. “I had everything worked out. It was perfect. It was my chance. Now I’m stuck here. I don’t speak the language, and worse, I don’t know the money.”

“I can barely breathe, so assume I’m just agreeing sympathetically,” Scotch whispered, coughing again.

“Right,” Charity said with a twist of her lips, barely visible in the moonlight. “If we were home, we could just go to Tenpony, work out a deal, and get your lungs magically healed up. Here…” she sighed, glaring at the grass. “Another fucking Wasteland.”

“Different kind of Wasteland,” she wheezed, rubbing her chest. “Are you really going to lose your shop?”

“Maybe,” Charity said with a scowl. “Probably. That was always a risk, but there was something I could do about it. Shoot a raider. Make a deal. Here there’s nothing I can do.” She slumped a little. “I figure my employees will sit around a few months and either rob me blind or take over. Fifty-fifty chance.”

“Well, you have us,” Scotch said.

“No offense, but if you’re anything like Blackjack, I don’t want to be anywhere near you,” Charity said and then looked back at the moon and sighed. “Not like I have a choice. I can’t even ask where the bathroom is.” She then gave Scotch the smallest of smiles. “Incidentally, thanks. For the toilets back in Chapel, I mean. You never realize what you have till you have to go poop in that grass stuff.”

Scotch returned her smile, but it soon disappeared. “You think Blackjack was wrong? Doing what she did?”

Charity pursed her lips. “I’m glad it was her and not me,” she admitted. “I don’t like being in anypony’s debt. Not even a dead mare’s.” She shook her head. “I’m just a business filly. That’s who I am. I don’t want to be wandering the Wasteland. Any Wasteland. I worked my tail off trying to keep it away from me.”

Scotch gave a little smile. “You know, helping me out, maybe you could look at it as paying Blackjack back?”

Charity snorted. “Don’t play head games with me, Scotch. You’re not good at it,” she sighed, “but I’ll play along. Risk is a part of opportunity. I’ll find a way to get back to Equestria, get my business back, and extract payment from everyone that had the guts to take my merchandise in caps and thumps to the chops. And if you’re smart, you’ll come with me.” She poked Scotch’s shoulder with a hoof. “Don’t be like Blackjack. Don’t let the Wasteland eat another hero. Seeing heroes die sucks.”

“I know. I wish I was there though. At the end,” Scotch muttered, then broke into another fit of coughing.

“You didn’t miss much,” came a voice from the dark. Pythia walked up and sat down on the other side of Scotch. “Basically just a train ride through the tunnels and a giant zebra monster at the end. I’m pretty sure if you had, you’d either have died and then Blackjack would have lost to the guilt, or you’d kick yourself for not going the last meter with her and thinking you could have saved her if you did.”

“Thanks,” Scotch rasped, slumping against the warm metal. “Are you going to tell me I’m fat too?”

“She knows. I already told her,” Skylord quipped from where he and Precious were trying to cook something meaty on a skewer with little puffs of flame. Scotch flushed; she’d slipped back to speaking Zebra to Pythia. Fortunately, not all her friends had noticed. Majina was doing some sort of funky dance thing that involved waving her hooves around and standing on one hind leg.

Pythia actually smiled dimly. “I was looking at the map, and–”

“Mind speaking something other than ooga booga?” Charity asked.

So much for that smile. “I was looking at the map, and–”

“How can you look at anything? It’s pitch black!” Charity complained.

Pythia glared at her. “Starlight,” she replied tersely. “As I was saying, I was looking at the map, and–”

“It’s not going to do us much good if we can’t see it.”

“You want to see?” she asked, then walked around and threw her cloak over Charity’s head. “Now light up that horn.” Charity’s horn illuminated a tiny patch of golden light, the rest captured by the hood. Pythia pushed the atlas into the pocket of light.

Scotch twisted her head to see it straight. There, at the top, was Rice River. Oddly, the community was marked with a small circle that read ‘small city’. An even larger one was on the coast at the mouth called Port Rice, but it looked as if twenty or thirty miles of coastland had been filled in carefully with blue crayon. Scotch remembered the vortex megaspell; that could definitely sweep any city into the sea. Rice River ran in a slight arc that bowed eastward before sliding off to the south east. An intricate webbing of roads and irrigation canals in black and blue bisected the green. “Where is Irontown?” Scotch asked, not seeing it on the page.

Pythia flipped two more pages over, following the southward flow of Rice River to a page where it forked. ‘Quiver Pass’ was neatly scratched out and ‘Irontown’ written over the name. The solid green was now filled with brown fingers that she worked out were supposed to represent mountains. Then Scotch saw the problem. “We’re on the wrong side of the river.”

“Yup. We’re on the west side here, and need to get to the east side,” Pythia said. “Problem is that there aren’t many bridges, and a river as big and wild as this isn’t something you can cross easily.” She flipped back a page. “There’s one crossing here, but it’s marked with a major Blood Legion camp.” She tapped where a major highway crossed the river, and a bright red glyph on the page. “And one up here,” she said, pointing to a crossing further north. An orange glyph warned of ‘hazard’ and ‘Shockwave’. A large lake was to the south of it, so perhaps it was a dam, instead of a bridge.

“That’s a long way,” Charity muttered, scowling at the map.

“Yeah. Three weeks if we’re lucky,” she said. “We’ll have to zig zag back and forth on these back roads to avoid running across a Blood Legion patrol. Skylord said they don’t have much in the way of radio, but if they nail us down, we’re dead.”

“And what if we can’t get across the river?” Scotch asked.

“We get to take nine extra pages to make it to Roam.” Pythia flipped over to a zoomed out page that showed a quarter of the continent and Scotch Tape gaped in astonishment as she realized one quarter was two thousand ‘kilometers’. Her brain did the math and… holy horseapples, that was more than a thousand miles! In the upper right corner was Rice River; she only identified it by the river, the town itself was too small to show up on this map.

They were on a plain that was hundreds of square miles. Maybe thousands. She spotted the split in the river that was where Irontown was halfway down the right side. A massive swath of green curled westward from Rice River, with a half dozen tributaries curving west like feathers on a wing. These fed into long valleys between thin mountain ranges sandwiched between the colossal mountains in the center of the continent and a sizable coastal range. She spotted the swamplands where they’d arrived; clearly they’d gotten lucky landing where they did. The swamps went on for hundreds of miles as well. A dozen cities were marked across the region, and she could only wonder if they would have to go around them, or through.

Pythia tapped a road halfway across the bottom of the page threading its way through the western edge of that immense mountain range. “That’s the halfway point. Only, oh, fifteen hundred miles from here.”

The thing that really gets people is the size of this place. Scotch was starting to grasp exactly what Vicious was talking about. “We’re going to need more supplies,” she said, looking out at the grass. The vast nothingness seemed to peer into her. For an instant she thought she could hear it. A dry, dusty chuckle.

“Well, it looks like the Blood Legion is going to help us out with that,” Pythia said as she went back to the regional map. “There’s places marked where the Blood Legion has stashed supplies. We can hit their caches and see what we can pick up.”

“And it’s not like we can’t salvage on the way, too,” Charity said. “Just risky.”

Risky to stop. Risky to keep going. What had Charity said? Risk was always a part of opportunity? “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

She heard dry cards shuffling in her ear, reminding her she actually did have a choice. Stop. Find a quiet place and play shaman, or a quiet life. All she had to do was give up. Trouble was she couldn’t give up. Blackjack never gave up.

The dry chuckle made her look around sharply, but there was nothing but the moonlit strands.

“I’ll take inventory in the morning,” Charity yawned. “I need some sleep.” She trudged away, moving to the other side of the Whiskey Express where she could also lean again the warm boiler.

Scotch coughed and then turned to Pythia as she packed up the map. “I need to ask you about spirit stuff,” she rattled, breaking into another fit of coughing.

“Later,” Pythia said as she rose to her hooves. “You’re sick. Rest. The spirits aren’t going anywhere,” she said as she trotted away.

Scotch wanted to deny it, but gave in. As she lay there, she stared at the grass gently swaying in the night breeze. A dark gap opened in the dark strands, and she stared into it, sure something lay within, till she finally drifted off to sleep.

“Do you think they saw us?” Precious asked with glee, boxes and crates flying through the air as the flimsy Blood Legion blockade was handily demolished by the steam tractor’s passage. A few shots rang out behind them. The dragonfilly clenched the wheel, refusing to let it slip as they barreled down the two lane road. The entire farmland was covered with a spiderweb of thoroughfares, ranging from a major four lane concrete beast of an arterial road down to little raised trails wide enough for only a single steam tractor. One thing was clear: the zebras sure loved to use concrete for their roads. It was the only thing keeping the razorgrass at bay.

While Scotch was sure Precious would have loved to use the really big roads, which were wide enough that she could drive all out, there was simply too great a chance they’d run afoul of a patrol. That meant taking slower side roads where they might run across a wreck blocking the way. Still, the Blood Legion patrols were fewer and smaller, on the lookout for great big legion threats and not a half dozen youngsters tearing down the road.

Scotch wanted to drive herself, but her brow burned with fever and it hurt to breathe. Her every attempt to engage Pythia on anything related to spirits had been rebuffed with comments about checking the map and making sure they were on course. So instead she clicked on her PipBuck’s radio. The legions had their own broadcasts, and Scotch Tape cycled through the various bands. Sometimes they changed frequency, but it wasn’t that hard to find them again. It seemed most of the legions had lost digital encryption technology, and so relied on a variety of codes. She suspected a few were taken from other languages, because once she’d picked up a broadcast of some distant legion chatting in heavily-accented Pony!

“…blood is life! Blood is strength! Blood is unity! We are united by our common blood, and that bond makes us strong!” came over the radio. Looked like it was propaganda hour in the Blood Legion. “That is why a purge of weak and corrupted blood is needed. Those who cannot achieve success, like Major Haimon, must be bled as an example to all!”

“Wait, does that mean that Major Haimon achieves success or cannot achieve success?” Pythia asked with a frown.

“I think it means the Blood Legion is up to another purge,” Skylord said with a disdainful sniff. “They’re overdue.”

“What’s that mean?” Scotch asked. The propaganda piece continued, slamming ‘weak blood’ in the leadership for failures against the Iron and Gold legions. Charity’s ears perked up at the Zebra word for gold. She’d picked up that much, at least.

“It means that when the population is too high and they can’t squeeze enough food from tribute and extortion, their general starts demanding their officers to take stupider risks against the other legions. If the raids work, more food and tribute. If the raids fail, then it’s fewer mouths to feed.”

“That’s horrible,” Scotch said, shaking her head as they puttered along an irrigation canal. Rusting pumps punctuated the levee with rusty bulges rising like sentries from the grass.

“Yeah, because the Bloods just breed more till they get to the next crisis. Every dozen or so years they collapse, tear each other apart, and eat each other, then after a while the strongest or luckiest left takes charge and kicks them back into shape,” Skylord said with a sniff. “Blood Legion is terrifying because of their numbers, but that’s it. They’ve got no artillery, and the only steam tanks they have are whatever they can steal from other legions. They’re constantly under supplied and undertrained, but they outnumber the enemy ten to one and they’ve always got reserves.” Skylord folded his arms behind his head. “I’m glad we thwarted them at Rice River.”

“Only when we have blood as strong as our General Sanguinus will we have what our legion rightfully deserves. We will sweep in and free the slaves from Irontown, and deliver from bondage the communities forced to deliver tribute to the Golden Legion. We will take control of the Fire Legion and restore our Empire as commanded by our glorious last Caesar!” She switched off the radio, not interested in hearing more about blood and strength.

“Slaves?” Precious asked Skylord sharply. “What slaves?”

Skylord gave a dismissive ‘tch’. “They’re not slaves! They’re conscripts. Ten years in the iron and coal mines and they get to leave. We feed them and everything.”

“And how many make it to the end of those ten years?” Precious challenged.

“More than would make it if we let them starve,” Skylord retorted. “And if we didn’t do it, then the Blood Legion would. They use slaves, and don’t care how many of them die.” He gave a shrug. “Most just join up with the Iron Legion anyway. Better meals you can count on than dying free.”

Scotch just shook her head at that logic. “Is that what happened to you?” she asked, glancing back at him. He scowled at her. “Were you forced to work for them, and just signed up?”

Skylord gave another little ‘tch’ at that. “I joined the Iron Legions because Colonel Adolpha didn’t give a damn about my age. I wanted to join up, and she was willing to take me.”

“I feel my story senses tingling!” Majina said brightly. “Why’d you want to join up?”

“To avoid having to tell stories to annoying zebras that want to poke their noses into my past,” Skylord countered.

“Oh, come on. I’m glad you’re with us, but we don’t know anything about you. What’s your favorite color?” Majina asked.

“Gray.”

“Your favorite food?”

“Zebras. The talky kind are extra tasty.”

“Where are you from?”

“Griffonstone,” he said. “It’s right next to Griffonrock, which is up the Griffonstream, which is in the middle of Griffonland.”

“Wait,” Charity said sharply. “I understood that word. That’s an actual place, isn’t it? I read about it in a book.”

Majina pounced, her face lighting up in delight. “Ohh, really? What’s it like? Is it an actual city of just griffons?” she asked, then balked. “Or was it balefired? Or megaspelled?”

“Please tell me none of the rest of you are interested in this,” Skylord muttered.

“I am interested in anything that’s not boring,” Precious said, slowing down a little to hear.

“Is someone going to translate this for me? I heard griffons are rolling in the caps,” Charity offered.

“I’d like to hear it,” Scotch assured him.

“Couldn’t care less,” Pythia said with a dismissive wave of her hoof as she studied the atlas. “But they’re going to keep being annoying till you answer them.”

Skylord gave another ‘tch’ before surrendering. “Fine. Yes, it’s an actual place. It’s on the western edge of the zebra lands, just a short flight from the pony lands. No, it wasn’t balefired or megaspelled. No one would ever waste either on that piece of crap. And I left because every griffon who can gets out of there.”

“Why?” Majina asked. “It can’t be any worse than anywhere else in the Wastelands.”

“Everywhere else in the Wasteland usually isn’t full of griffons,” he countered. “Not sure if you noticed, but we’re not exactly pleasant. We don’t even like each other all that much. The only reason anyone goes to Griffonstone is to find someone to have a kid with, and the only reason anyone stays is because they’re too scared to leave.”

“How’d the griffons even get dragged into the war?” Scotch asked.

“You’re kidding, right?” Skylord asked. “Look, before the war you had zebras making their super empire and ponies making their mega-realm. Know what happened to everyone who didn’t have four hooves and a mark on their butt? Diddly squat. Zip. We were a mean, nasty, bully race that didn’t get a piece of the pie. But when the war broke out, suddenly we were all in high demand. We could fly. We had the claws and beaks and most importantly, we had the killer attitude.

“A pair of griffons, Gilda and Greta, came up with the scheme. If the zebras and ponies wanted to use us, then we’d make them pay out the nose for our services. We made our contracts and offered our services, and charged them both out the ass. One rule was that we wouldn’t be forced to kill each other. Oh, we’d fight. We’d do that anyway with each other, but we could usually stop short and let the loser run. And we raked in the money. Got ourselves power armor. Weapons. Power and respect. Things we never had before the war.”

“So what happened?”

“War ended. Ponies were blown up, zebras that the ponies didn’t get tore each other to pieces, and there we were with some of the best materiel and fighting units of the war. We could have taken over the world. Maybe. Greta said griffons could save the world. Problem was, though, that in twenty years one fundamental fact hadn’t changed.”

“What?” Majina asked, breathlessly.

“Griffons are jerks,” Pythia answered, not looking up.

Skylord gave a sage nod. “Yep. We’re jerks. To everyone. Especially to each other. Worse, Gilda and Greta had both disappeared. Gilda went to settle a score with some pony. Greta ordered us to take care of our own, and took off to who knew where. So much for our leadership. Not that there weren’t some morons that challenged their ideas. This one idiot named Gabby spouted some ‘better way’ garbage, and got run out of Griffonstone. Then we broke up into bands of talons and just kept doing what we’d done during the war: fighting for whomever paid us. That’s all we are. I’m pretty sure it’s all we’ll ever be.”

“Don’t you find it sad?” Majina asked. “I mean… you could be…”

“Be what? Like zebras? With all your tribe and legion and spirit nonsense? Like ponies? Oh so much better than everyone else? Forget it. We’re neither. We are what we are, and near as I can tell, we are what we’re supposed to be.”

“So… what’s your contract with Adolpha?” Precious asked. “Isn’t that how griffons do things?”

“That’s between Adolpha and me,” Skylord replied.

“I swear, I am going to get backstory out of you if I have to beat you with a stick,” Majina swore.

“Look, all you have to know is that she ordered me to accompany you. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to do,” he answered. “There is no story. She thinks you’re useful. The second she realizes you’re not and orders me out of here, I’m gone.”

Scotch frowned as she thought about that. He didn’t say he’d been ordered to protect them or anything. Accompany. And was he loyal to Adolpha or the Iron Legion?

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Precious stated solemnly before smirking at him. “Griffons really are jerks!”

“One of you figured it out. Finally,” he snorted.

“Will someone please stop talking in gibberish and tell me what’s going on?” Charity pleaded.

“Okay, so let me get this straight.” Charity fixed Pythia with a frown. “The mendy ones use healy stuff for money, but the legions use bullets for money, but the Propros use technology as money, so how many bullets for a battery? Is there an exchange rate or is it just barter? Please tell me it’s not just barter! Crappy as caps might be they’re at least–”

“Pit stop!” Precious called out as she turned the Wiskey Express off the main road, and immediately everyone let out a mutter of relief. They’d stopped at something called ‘Stop and Shop’, a huge tangle of tractor wrecks clustered around some sort of retail building. The rusty icon of an enormous grinning zebra stallion framed by four stars lifting a hoofful of coins leered down through streaks of reddish brown. Someone had used it for target practice. Razorgrass grew in tangled protrusions all over the place, but there were so many huge steam tractors Scotch thought they could take a safe break here.

‘Cause she sure needed one after a day of Charity grilling them about money in the zebralands.

“There should be a cache somewhere around here, according to the map,” Pythia stated firmly. “We should try and find it. We also need coal and clean water, so keep your eyes peeled for both.”

“But wait! I’ve almost got this.” Charity consulted a scrap of paper. “So the Aioli use fish for money. The Carnies food. The whatit use… wait, is that the Rora or the…” She trailed off and Pythia jumped from the trailer as well. “Hey! This is important! I’m trying to work out the exact exchange ratio between imperios, fish, and food!”

“And it’s whining again,” Skylord muttered. “That’s my cue to take a patrol.” He launched himself into the air, and Precious watched him go.

“Engh! Wings! Why couldn’t I have wings too,” Precious grumbled and then jumped off the Whiskey Express. “I’ll check around the back of the building building. Watch the grass.” And then she was gone, slipping out between the clumps that pushed up through gaps in the concrete.

“To you,” Pythia said as Majina started to climb out after her, then she pushed Majina back into the wagon. “Oh no, you brought her. You get to teach her about the Carnies and the Roras.”

“But–” Majina began with a pained whine.

“No buts. Someone needs to stay with the Whiskey Express anyway while we look around,” she said, and then extended a hoof the help Scotch out of the trailer. Her chest throbbed and her brow was damp with sweat. It’d been three days since leaving Rice River and her PipBuck still showed her chest as crippled, even after using healing potions.

“But Scotch–” Majina began.

“Could use a walk,” Pythia finished, then looked to the young mare, “Right?” Scotch simply nodded. “Besides, if the cache on the map is locked, I’ll need her to pick it.” Majina chewed her lip, watching the pair start away.

“Hey, get back here. I need to work out how many shiny beads it’ll take to buy one of these cities!” Charity demanded as the pair walked away.

“Thanks,” Scotch wheezed.

“Don’t. If I had to listen to her whine a second more…” But she shook her head. “I think you’ve got something like pneumonia.”

“When did you learn about medicine?” Scotch asked with a frown.

“Just the basics,” she said as she lowered her head and pressed her ear to Scotch’s chest. “Breathe deep.” Scotch tried to oblige her, but again broke into a fit of coughing. “It sounds like your lungs are full of gravel.” She looked gravely at her, “I think that you breathed in too much dust and crap when that building fell on you. It’s deep in your lungs. Too deep to just cough out on your own. And since it’s dust, healing potions won’t handle it like a normal disease or injury.”

“I’ve had problems with my lungs before,” Scotch said as she rubbing the faded scar on her chest. “Maybe… a replacement? Shaman magic? You can do that, right? Like Tchernobog?”

Pythia didn’t speak, just giving Scotch a long look. She stopped in the cover of one of the huge, empty trailers and hopped inside. “Okay. We can do it here.”

“Do what?” Scotch asked. Could Pythia really fix–

“Have that talk that I don’t want to have with you,” she said as she took a seat. “About teaching you how to be a shaman, shaman magic, and all the shamany things you want to ask me.” Scotch gaped at her with a growing smile. She was finally going to teach her everything she needed to know? Of course she was! Pythia was the zebra who knew things! She stared solemnly at Scotch when she announced, “I’m not going to teach you.”

“What?” Scotch gaped at her, feeling as if she’d been smacked across the face with a board. Was this Pythia’s idea of a joke? “Why? You can, right?”

“Sure. I know the circles to make. The names to invoke. What bones to rattle and chickens to shake. I know how to make the deal. And I’m not going to teach you any of it,” she said flatly and sighed, “And now you get upset.”

“Of course I’m upset!” Scotch snapped, screwing her face up as she tried to process this, trying to keep her voice steady as her chest throbbed. “Is it because you don’t trust me or you think I’m lying about seeing spirits?” Scotch asked around bouts of heavy wheezing. Pythia seemed to be waiting, “Or because I’m a pony?”

That earned a scornful little ‘tch’ from Pythia before she answered. “It’s because I’m not a shaman,” Pythia replied evenly.

Scotch didn’t have the breath to argue. “Explain,” she said, sitting down hard.

“Being a shaman isn’t a good thing. Some people might think it’s like sprouting a unicorn horn atop their head, and suddenly you have special powers. It isn’t. Being a shaman is being cursed. Your life gets smashed between two worlds, with one half wanting things because of what you can do, and the other half twisting your mind, body, and soul to placate the others,” she said evenly. “You remember Niuhi? The filly that tried to eat you?” Scotch nodded. “What happened to her isn’t unusual. Shamans frequently draw on spirits for extra strength, speed, wits. Only you aren’t taking favors. It’s a trade. Sometimes it’s something small that you won’t even miss, maybe even something you’ll get back if you make the right moves, the right deal. But it’s so often a lot more than that, and those are for keeps. And every time you trade something of yourself away, it seems that much less of an ask the next time you do it. Surprise surprise when one day they’ve changed into something else.”

“So I won’t do that,” Scotch countered.

“No? Not even to fix your lungs? Or how about if one of us is hurt? Or dying? Can you honestly say you wouldn’t ‘give a little’ of yourself to help us?” Pythia asked, making Scotch look away. “There’s a line for shamans. You can’t see it. You’ll never know how close you are to it, but the second you cross it, you’re changed forever. But if the change doesn’t kill you, you get used to it. You accept it. Then you’re pushing that line again.”

“So you’re afraid I’ll hurt myself?”

“Please. Pain is for chumps. I’m… concerned you’ll lose yourself. I saw Blackjack. I know some of her stupid self-sacrificial tendencies rubbed off on you. But more to the point, and this is the point you need to really understand, I can’t teach you the specifics about being a shaman because, again, I am not a shaman,” she said, firmly emphasizing those last five words.

“Then what are you doing now?” Scotch challenged, stung by her refusal and struggling not to show tears.

Waving her hoof in the air dismissively, Pythia snorted, “What I’m telling you is what any Zencori could tell you. But the second I cross that line and demonstrate that I know what I know, then I’m pushing that line too. I become a shaman, and there are spirits and other things that would notice.” Pythia shivered, pulling her cloak around her.

“So you’re afraid,” Scotch muttered.

“Damn right, I am!” Pythia snapped. “And you should be too. There’s a reason shamans try to stay in the background. It’s safer. When people we care about are at risk, or if we care too hard, we get pushed to cross the line. I’m not a shaman anymore.”

“You’re just saying that,” Scotch countered. “Desideria didn’t ‘stay in the background’.”

“Right. And look at what she wrought when she didn’t: Rice River occupied. The festival disrupted. Everything blew up because she decided to take a stand against Carnico and for her tribe. If she’d been a proper shaman, she would have waited for someone to come to her and ask her for help against Carnico. Instead, she involved herself, and when you involve yourself, you come up with reasons to push at that line.”

“So just saying you’re not a shaman makes you not a shaman? Nice. Do you become one if you say you are?”

“If you’re lucky, no. You become a corpse,” Pythia said evenly. “If you go looking, eventually you find them, and they find you.”

“And not being a shaman is just… quit?” How did that even work? “Did you file a resignation or something?” she asked sarcastically. This was just ridiculous. She could be the first pony shaman ever and Pythia was trying to talk her out of it!

“Pretty much. And as long as I’m not a shaman, it’s true, and as long as it’s true, spirits couldn’t give two turds about me. I might as well be a pony or griffon to them. I can keep peeking over their shoulders and ask questions as a seer. That’s allowed. That’s the deal,” she said, rubbing her forelegs as she stared off at the rusty wall of the trailer.

Scotch processed that, and then frowned. ‘The deal’. “What happened to you that made you stop being a shaman?”

Pythia stared at the broken, twisted trailers outside the back hatch. “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered, her eyes lingering on something far away. Or long ago. “What matters is I did it, and can’t do it again.”

“It matters to me. What could you possibly have done that was that bad?” Scotch asked, once again losing her ability to speak to an outbreak of ragged coughing.

Pythia glanced at her, then looked away again. Her face worked, as if her answer was struggling to break through her silent mask of scorn. “I helped Blackjack.” She was silent for almost a minute as Scotch waited, and focused on calming her ragged, burning breathing. “What she was going up against… the odds…” Pythia said slowly, as if trying to ease her way out of a tangle of razor wire. “She asked me to make a deal for her. Any spirit. Every spirit. Whatever help they could give, at any price.” She covered her face with her hoof. “And I crossed the line.”

“What do you mean?”

“My tribe deals with the nasty spirits, so the other twelve don’t have to. Spirits of mutation and madness. Spirits of decay. Spirits of inevitability, death, and corruption. Fate. I broke out every name I knew, and a few that I didn’t even know I knew till I looked for them, and I asked them to help Blackjack and undermine that monster. To give her a chance.” Her whole body shook as if suffering an attack, and to Scotch’s astonishment, tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “And I… I did it. I made the deal Blackjack wanted me to make! A deal I should have run from screaming, but she… I…” And in another first, words cracked and died in her mouth, her jaw working silently.

“You’re not a monster, no matter what,” Scotch pointed out, her voice softer. “You helped save the world.” She tentatively reached out, placing a hoof on her shoulder. For once, Pythia didn’t immediately knock it aside.

“No,” Pythia said hard, shaking her head. “When Blackjack faced the Eater of Souls, I saw in most of the futures that she’d put the Eater to sleep, and die in the process. Horizons would bury it deep in the earth again. That was it. I just wanted to see how she both would and wouldn’t beat the Legate.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes haunted as she stared out at nothing. “But then she asked me to make that deal and… and I should have said no! Laughed at her. But the prospect of her actually winning…” Pythia’s voice trailed off in wonder before she shook again and dropped her head. “I should have said no. I should have just let the future play out, and left her to her fate. You don’t kill things like that without paying the highest price… and all on one pony? Maybe all of Equestria might have shouldered that curse, but I put it all on one person. I put it all on her…”

Pythia turned and grabbed her, tears streaking her cheeks. “And I should have known better! The price they asked! She’s going to suffer like the Legate suffered, for as long as he suffered, and he was around for centuries. Millennia, possibly. He turned into the evilest monster that I’ve ever seen. A creature… an extension… of a dead star! And I agreed to it. I… did that.” She took a deep breath. “And it worked. She shouldn’t have had a chance in a million years of beating it, but she did.”

Scotch stared at the wretched zebra. “Pythia… she’s dead.”

Pythia rolled her eyes with a scornful snort. “Please. How many times did she die before that? Death is a concept utterly alien to some spirits, and I dealt with them. One way or another, she’ll be back. They will drag her back! Again and again. And she’ll be the chew toy for spirits for an eon at least. Or maybe her soul is being tortured right now in the everafter! And I did that to her,” she said, her face stricken before she pulled back and sat down, hanging her head. “I did that to her, and I crossed the line. I might not look like a monster, but I’m scarred.” She closed her eyes. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be that way… forever.” She sniffed and wiped her hoof across her face. “If I go back to being a shaman, I’ll make another deal like that. I know it. I know I have the clout to pull it off. The stupid audacity to do it in the first place. So the only way not to is to never be a shaman again.”

For the first time, Scotch felt as if she were really meeting the real Pythia. The filly hidden underneath layers and layers of scorn, even if she didn’t talk like a filly. Scotch didn’t agree that her teaching her would make her a shaman. She’d be a teacher, but clearly Pythia believed she couldn’t. “I need to know this spirit stuff. If I’m a shaman, and if it’s that dangerous, then I need to know.”

“No, you don’t!” Pythia said, shaking her shoulders, her voice a shade away from a desperate plea. “You don’t. Turn your back on the spirits, like I did. Quit. Just quit. Be a mechanic or whatever you want to be, but don’t try and be a shaman. When you see spirits, they see you. When you look for them, they seek you out! When you deal with them, they want to deal with you, and sooner or later they’ll make a deal you can’t say no to.” Scotch could have sworn she heard the shuffling of cards directly behind her.

For a moment, Scotch considered it. So far, she’d met five or six shamans. A third had turned into monsters or gone bad. Maybe, Pythia was right. Maybe… but… “Pythia… I can’t. If I really am a pony shaman, then I need to figure out why. I need to find out what it means. You know all the stuff I need to know. Just teach me that, and I’ll figure it all out on my own,” Scotch pressed, frowning at her for being so stubborn.

“I can’t take that risk. I’ve made sure I’ll never take that risk,” she said as she turned away and walked to the mouth of the trailer. “Anyway, we should find that Blood Legion cache. I see shredded legs in the future, so watch for mines.”

“This isn’t–” Scotch began, coughing and holding her chest.

“Yeah, I know,” Pythia said, with both a small half smile and a little roll of her eyes. “‘It’s not over.’ You’re going to ask me over and over again. And I’m going to keep telling you no. Eventually, you’ll find someone else to teach you, and we’ll be friend-ish again.” She shook her head slightly and tugged her hood back in place. “Now focus on breathing, and we’ll go and we’ll go find that cache when you’re better.”

They found it twenty minutes later, after Pythia prevented Scotch getting her legs blown off by a mine. One look at the red bars on her E.F.S. confirmed to Scotch that she didn’t want anyone to set hoof inside the Stop and Shop. The cache had been rather underwhelming: a half dozen boxes of preserved food. A pistol, with some ammo. A suit of Blood Legion barding too big for any of them to wear. She got the impression these cashes were for Haimon’s personal use, rather than for the legion as a whole. They probably had whole camps for those kinds of stores.

‘Just don’t be a shaman.’ she thought as they piled back into the trailer after looting the cache. She could be the very first pony shaman, ever. If she could just see spirits consistently and talk to them and… She caught Pythia staring at her, with mournful eyes. As if she could see the thoughts in her head, and already knew they were going to get her killed. Scotch Tape fought back the anger and resentment. Why’d she have to be so stubborn and sure she knew better?

Scotch stared off at the rusty wagons and decaying Stop and Shop. She narrowed her gaze, straining her eyes and gritting her teeth. Was she actually seeing golden spirits in the gloom, or the shadows of her own mind? “Hey! You stopped up?” Precious asked as she regarded the filly. “Eat some of that razorgrass. It’ll clear you right out.”

She sagged and broke into rasping coughs, wanting to laugh at the joke... at least she hoped it was... but not able to. The flat rejection from her friend stung, no matter how she tried to rationalize it. She needed a teacher. She could see spirits. She could. And no matter what Pythia said, she’d never give up trying.

Just like Blackjack.

She stumbled back towards the Whiskey Express, imagining a dry chuckle in the back of her mind.

Two days later, she was just trying to breathe. Her body burned with fever, shivered with cold, and every cough was a stab in her sides. She’d been like this once; after killing joke had filled her lungs with chlorine gas. She’d been placed in stasis, her chest an inferno that had been fixed a merciful few hours later. Now, every minute was one of agony.

“She can’t keep going like this,” Majina protested one night, as they pondered what to do next. Her friends were gathered around a fire inside the crumbling shell of another collapsed silo. Scotch needed the heat; when the cold tightened her chest too much she was in tears from the pain.

“Irontown is four or five days away,” Pythia said tersely. “Seven at the most.”

“She’s not going to last that long. Or am I wrong? How many futures have us all getting there safe and sound?” she asked the seer.

“Few,” was Pythia’s laconic reply.

Skylord scratched his beak. “There’s another option. We can try and find the Green Legion for help.”

“Green?” Precious asked. “I thought this was all Blood Legion territory.”

“It is. Green Legion are neutral. They’re the only legion that can pass through other legion territory, including the Bloods. They offer medical care, repairs, and things like that. Fact is, most legions need their services,” Skylord said.

“They do? Well why didn’t you say that sooner?” Precious asked.

“One, because they’re nomadic. The follow the old zebra migration route, but there’s no telling where a group will be at any time. Two, they don’t offer it for free. They could demand the Whiskey Express for payment, and then we’d be stranded out here. Just because they help doesn’t mean they’re saints. In Irontown I could demand medical care for her. We’d be better off trying to get there.”

“She’ll be dead long before then,” Majina objected. Then she blinked. “Wait? Migration route? You mean the Old Road?”

“I guess,” Skylord said with a shrug. “Do you know it?”

“Know it?” She squealed. “It’s the Old Road. The Old Road! It’s only the source of a thousand different stories and zebra history.”

“Well, we crossed it two days ago and you didn’t seem to care,” he noted, making her flush.

“I didn’t know it was the Old Road! We’ve crossed a hundred nothing roads. Why didn’t you tell us we were crossing it!”

“It’s a road. It’s old. What’s the big deal?” he asked, as if in shock.

“It’s the Old Road! Millions of zebra have walked it! It’s… us!” she said, looking at Pythia. “You understand, don’t you?”

Pythia just shrugged as she pulled out the atlas. “I remember seeing it with a special mark on the atlas, but I didn’t know about this Green Legion. Any ideas where they might be?” Pythia asked as she flipped to the appropriate page. Skylord moved over and pointed it out. “That’s a day or two west of here.”

“West!” Charity piped up. “I understood that! West is awesome. I vote west!”

“That’s exactly the direction we need to not be going,” Pythia contradicted her in Pony.

“You’re a communist, aren’t you?” Charity challenged in a low voice, but Pythia ignored her indignation.

“I say you should ask Scotch,” Precious said, turning to the filly. “Think you can hold on to Irontown, or do you want to find these Green Legion guys?”

Scotch grit her teeth and regarded Pythia, then Skylord. “Will the Greens… betray us?” she gasped between shallow breaths.

“Probably not. They’re neutral. As long as everyone behaves they’ll be fine, but I can’t guarantee what they’ll charge,” he said tersely. “We really should just push on to Irontown. We can abandon the Whiskey Express to get across the river and flag a train, if we have to.”

Could she hold on seven days like this? She wanted to say yes. She needed to. Blackjack would have… but every tight, shallow inhalation was like breathing fire. She struggled to keep the tears off her cheeks.

“Try and find the Greens,” she muttered.

The next day they steamed west, hour after hour passing beneath their wheels. Skylord took wing, scouting the path as they maneuvered through the green grass along roads so decayed that razorgrass sprouted through in deadly sheets. Several times they had to stop to let Precious burn away the strands. There were distant peaks far to the south and west, but they seemed hazy, as if in a dream.

Then they reached the road. They must have passed it without even a blink some time in days back, because as Skylord directed them down this new route, the differences were obvious. It wasn’t poured concrete, with a raised embankment, guard rails, and light posts. The surface was intricately fitted stones of blue-green and white. They were fitted together so closely that Scotch doubted she could get a knife edge in between them. The granite paving stones had worn grooves passing down the middle, from countless hooves walking upon it. The surface had been polished smooth by their passage. Though there was no need to slow, they did. It didn’t cut through the land like the other roads did, moving as straight as a razor through the low hills and flatlands. Instead,it meandered ever so slightly this way and that. Trees grew here and there along the length, the branches arching over to provide shade with their verdant foliage by the westerly winds. Large boulders with worn glyphs were dotted here and there along the route.

“So, what’s this?” Charity asked as she eyed the path around them.

“This is the Old Road. It goes all around Zebrinica, from Zanzebra in the south to the Yaks in the north,” Majina said reverently, eyes wide. “For thousands of years, zebras migrated around the continent. That route eventually became known as the Old Road.”

“I don’t see the big deal,” Precious said. “It’s just a road.”

“It’s not a road. It’s the road. Half of our stories start ‘One day, on the Old Road.’ Every zebra once was expected to walk the Old Road, all the way around Zebrinica in an enormous loop. It could take years, sometimes!” she gushed as she pointed to one of the standing rocks. “That says ‘Here, Alsebom of Carnos stood firm against the two hundred elephants of the Thundering Bandits. He slew them, so that his people could continue. Here he lies, to guard over the travelers who come after.”

“And does he? Is this a magical road or something?” Charity asked.

Majina rubbed the back of her head. “Well, it kinda depends on the story. I mean, the Old Road was supposed to be safe for mares and foals because of the heroes that die along the path, but there’s also all kinds of monsters that set up along the Old Road. But it’s the Old Road! It’s still here!” She gave a squeal of joy.

“Not all of it,” Skylord said evenly. “There’s parts that are balefired and megaspelled right along with the rest of Zebrinica. Most people just avoid it since the highways and rails are faster.”

“You don’t take the Old Road for speed. You take it for tradition,” Majina huffed.

“Well, tradition isn’t going to get us to the Greens before Scotch dies,” Pythia pointed out. “Where are they, Skylord?”

“I told you, they could be anywhere. This route is huge, and there’s only so many Green Legion. It’s a gamble. Might run into them tomorrow. Might run into them a month from now,” he said with definite tones of ‘I told you this was a bad idea.’

“We’ll run into them soon. We’re on the Old Road. It’ll get us where we need to go. It has to,” Majina said, her smile wide but her eyes strained as she put her faith in her stories.

That night, they sheltered beneath a fallen zebra statue. It’d once stood more than a hundred feet high, but had collapsed on its side, broken into chunks of blue gray stone. They parked the Whiskey Express behind it, and risked a fire to try and cook some sort of gruel from their boxed supplies for Scotch. Majina sat by the fire and told story after story about the Old Road. Most of them did begin with ‘One day, on the Old Road, So and So was walking from somewhere to somewhere else when they came across a…’ and the then the story could go from the hero facing monsters, to the lonely meeting love, to the arrogant receiving a humiliation. They were formulaic and straightforward, but somehow each of her stories grabbed a least one of them.

Precious listened raptly to a poor peddler who came across a fortune, but then had to bury pieces here and there to hide it from bandits. The story left the dragonfilly digging idly at the ground, as if gold could be found right underneath them. Scotch Tape couldn’t help but be enthralled at the story of a father who carried his filly through a snowstorm on the old road, getting her to safety, at the cost of his own life. Pythia hid her interest as Majina told about a zebra mystic who learned all one hundred and sixty nine secrets of the universe walking the Old Road his entire life. Skylord tried to remain aloof, perched on the statue, but when she told about the eternal warrior Orion facing the immortal beast Xugon, he flew down to join them. Even Charity was laughing and clapping at the story of a wily trader Zushu Zushu, who started his travels with two brass coins and a rag, and traded with everyone he met on the road, until he had a large enough fortune to buy himself a small kingdom.

“I’ve done that!” Charity laughed, looking at the others. “The whole ‘but if I give it to him, then you won’t have it’ bit. I mean, they were two raiders and not ogres, but I did exactly that! Wish I’d gotten that kind of payoff, but still, I’ve done that!”

“That’s the Old Road,” Majina said with a smile, spreading her hooves wide.

When Scotch lay down, she stared at the road, listening to the crackle of their fire. Maybe it was her imagination, or perhaps she was sicker than she realized, but she imagined she could see golden ghosts walking past them. Stallions, mares, foals, dressed in everything from primitive rags to furs to silks to armor. An endless parade of history passing along the great road before her eye. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe not.

The next day, they resumed their journey on the Old Road. Majina’s faith that the road would provide, like in so many of her stories, absolutely glowed. She told them to keep an eye out for mysterious hermits, odd crones, or mystical talking animals. All the while she kept on babbling stories of other travelers on the Old Road who came across help when they really needed it. Scotch was too feverish to argue with her or tell her to stop. Skylord kept muttering. This was a mistake. They needed to turn around. Get to Irontown. Get to his Legion for help.

Maybe, Scotch thought as she lay there on her side, struggling to breathe, she wanted Majina’s stories to be true too. After another day of fruitless travelling, they made camp near a large, knobby tree, and she had to be carried off the trailer. Tonight, there weren’t any stories. It was just an argument between Skylord and Majina, the former regretting even mentioning the Green Legion, and the latter insisting that they’d come across them any day now.

“Your friends like to argue,” muttered an old voice beside her.

“Yeah,” she said, glancing up at a withered zebra stallion. His eyes were completely filmed over, a gray mustache and beard falling to his chest. He wore a tattered old robe that hung oddly on his gaunt frame, hiding his stripes. A strange, wide, conical hat was perched atop his head. A crooked pipe jutted from his lips as he watched her friends bicker with filmy eyes. “Are you a spirit?”

He gave a crooked smile. “If I were, could you see and hear me? Ponies can’t. You have your Princesses and magic. What need have you for spirits?” He took a pull off the pipe and let out a little curl of pale green smoke. “Call me Trailblazer.”

“I’m Scotch Tape. Trailblazer’s not a zebra name,” she said with a frown.

“Oh?” he seemed amused. “Do I have to have one? Do you have to have a pony name?” He chuckled, shaking his old head slowly. “What brings you to the Old Road?”

“I’m dying,” she answered.

“Everything does eventually,” he said with a sad smile.

“We’re trying to find the Green Legion,” she muttered. “They can help me.”

“Oh? They’re usually about somewhere here. They keep it from falling apart completely,” Trailblazer muttered, regarding her. “You’re a very odd pony,” he poked the stem of his pipe in her direction, “if I may say so.”

“I’m a shaman,” she muttered, getting another chuckle. “At least I think I am.” She frowned at him. “Are you a spirit?”

“Isn’t everything?” he replied. “Aren’t you?”

“If I were, everything wouldn’t hurt as bad,” Scotch said, reaching out to poke him, but not quite reaching. Then he stretched over and booped her nose lightly. She slumped to the ground. “You’re not.”

“Oh? Can’t touch spirits, eh?” he asked, then regarded her friends. “It’s been a long time since anyone walked the Old Road like you fellows. I mean take your little friend there. She believes. She really, truly, believes.”

“Majina loves stories. If you ask her, she’ll tell you ours,” Scotch said, giving out a cough that felt as if someone were stabbing her chest repeatedly. “Do you know about the Eye of the World?” she asked, struggling to lift her head.

“I do,” he said with a little nod.

“Do you know if it is blinded?”

“No,” he said, his smile fading. “If it isn’t, well, the world is sad indeed, and it would not surprise me if it closed its eye to the horrors rampant upon it. If it is open, then maybe it searches for one that can help it. And if it is blind, I fear for us all.”

“Why?” she muttered, her world fading out a little around the edges. She struggled to push back the encroaching dark.

“Because the world has great and terrible power within it. Without sight, how can it avoid crushing us all like ants if it made to use it?” he asked as he picked up a rock.

“You’re a shaman,” Scotch Tape guessed.

“Oh?” That made him smile again. “Old. Pipe. Appearing mysteriously to offer cryptic discourse to a dying pony. I suppose I do fit the type.” He took a pleased puff.

“I want to learn how to be a shaman,” she muttered.

“Oh?” He nudged his hat back to peer down at her. “Don’t you want to learn how to be a Scotch Tape first?” She closed her eyes.

“I already know how to be me,” she wheezed. “I’m not good enough. I couldn’t save my dad, or Blackjack, or Mom, or anyone. I can’t save myself now.”

“Oh. And being a shaman will change all that?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” she muttered. Then she had an image and Niuhi lying on her side, gasping for air much like Scotch was now.

“Couldn’t it?” he asked. “What do you want?”

What did she want? What did any of her friends want? “I want to stop hurting.”

“I see.” He nodded soberly a moment. “Well then, if you just want to lay there, I’d suggest dying quickly. Pain is the price of life.” He rubbed his chin. “On the other hoof, if you’d like to lessen your pain, I’d get back in that contraption and get rolling. You’re never going to find anything just sitting around here.” She opened her eyes at that, but Trailblazer was gone. Had he been a spirit? A shaman? A spooky old man?

Get moving, or get dying. Slowly she pushed herself upright. Her friends immediately cut out their arguing as she struggled towards the trailer. “Scotch? What’s wrong?” Majina asked in alarm.

“Let’s go,” she said as she walked to the back of the trailer. “We can argue and drive.”

“It’s dark,” Precious said with a frown. “We can’t see.”

“The stars are out. Pythia can drive,” Scotch said as she flopped in the back. “Let’s go.”

“Are you kidding? I can’t drive that contraption!” Pythia protested at once, glowering. “Scotch, you need to rest. We can go in the morning.”

“The old zebra said to get going, so we need to get going,” she said as she closed her eyes. “And yeah, it doesn’t make much sense but I can die by the road or travelling it. I’d rather be travelling.”

She wasn’t sure how long she lay back there, but it was long enough to hear her friends strike camp, and for the Whiskey Express to resume rolling down the Old Road. Precious and Charity muttered about her being delirious, but she didn’t care. For all she knew, they were right. She just wanted to be moving again. Her eyes stared up at distant stars before everything went black once more.

When she woke, two things were apparent. One was that she could breathe again. Not well. It hurt like crazy, but she could draw a deeper breath than she could before she’d passed out. Two, it was snowing.

That was enough to make her open her eyes.

She lay on her chest in a trailer of some kind. Slowly she scanned her surroundings. The upper racks were filled with medical accoutrements like what she’d seen in Galen’s office. The front had some sort of sleeping arrangement with a pair of hammocks. The far wall had an odd assortment of a half dozen refrigerators chained to the side of the cart. Slowly she twisted her head and stared up at something that looked like a sieve on a chain. Shredded ice was filtering down to her.

And in the ice was a spirit. It looked like nothing less than a golden snowflake that was constantly forming strange, six sided, geometric shapes. As the snow filtered down, tendrils of light fell with it. She twisted on her side for a better look…

Oh. That’s a nice flank.

It belonged to a colt. A bit shaggier than most. The glyph on it was a six sided snow flake with a strange water drop. He was digging for something underneath her bed. “Where am I?” she asked.

There was a thump beneath her, and he pulled his head back. On his brow was an arrowhead shaped mark in green, almost like a tattoo. A tree, she realized. “Oh, you’re awake,” he said. “You’re safe. I’m Lumi.” He gave a shaky little smile. “Don’t move. We’re treating your lungs and infection.” There was something definitely off about him though. Why wasn’t he opening his eyes?

She glanced up at the spirit. “How sick am I?”

“Well, really, really sick. According to my uncle, you’ve got bacterial pneumonia and severe silicosis, and probably a fungal infection as well.” He reached over, his hooves touching the surface lightly till he found a jar full of something that looked like maroon tar. “This is what we sucked out of your lungs. Cool, huh?”

She’d disagree with him on that. “You’re using a spirit to heal me?”

“Hey, yeah,” he said brightly. “I summoned up a little ice spirit to fight your fever. It was more than happy enough to.” His smile faded. “There wasn’t much we could do to restore your lungs though. We tried but…” he paused and, then lowered his voice. “You’re censured.”

“I’m… what?” she asked with a frown.

“Censured. You crossed a bunch of spirits and they did a doozy on your lungs. I’m not sure they’ll ever be healed. Not sure they can be,” he frowned as he cocked his head, his long bangs falling in his face. “You’re actually the first pony I’ve seen censured before. What did you do?”

“According to her friends,” came a stallion’s voice from the doorway. “She invited a whole host of spirits to a peaceful festival, and then reneged on the invitation one day in.” The older stallion was just as shaggy as the colt, and had the same tree shaped mark on his brow. His coat hung close to his thin frame, and dark eyes stared at Scotch from a long distance.

“I thought she was a pony,” Lumi said with a frown, his eyes still infuriatingly closed. Why wouldn’t he look at her? “How could she summon anything?”

“I don’t know. I just did. You’d see that if you’d open your eyes,” Scotch said crossly as she glared at the stallion she assumed was Lumi’s uncle. Lumi’s pleasant smile melted slightly. His uncle, however, fixed her with a glower.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Lumi said as he opened his eyes. They were just as white as the white between his stripes. “I’m censured too.”

“Oh…” Scotch muttered. “Sorry.”

“I’m Kivet, your doctor. Your pony friend talked me down to charity prices,” the stallion said as he walked to a counter and took out a jar. “You’ll stay here another night. I know a lungwort infusion that should help. Unfortunately, when it comes to spiritual damage, I know even less than my nephew.” He opened the jar and put a little scoop of green into a cup, then grabbed a bottle of something amber and poured it in, swishing it around.

Scotch rubbed her chest, and then took an experimental deep breath. She got about half way before breaking down into a cough. “There’s nothing you can do?”

“There’s many things I can do. Just not for you,” he replied, upending the bottle and taking a drink. A really long drink. “I was able to expel the majority of the detritus, with some help from my nephew, but your lungs are permanently damaged, and I suspect once you leave here you will eventually take sick again and drown in your own fluids. You’re welcome.” He said as he turned. “Let it steep for fifteen minutes, and then give it to her, Lumi.”

“Yes, uncle,” the colt said, dropping his head. “Please, try not to drink so much.”

Kivet didn’t reply, just gave a grunt as he left the wagon.

A multitude of questions rose up. She asked the least tangled she could think of. “You’re Green Legion? Or… tree legion?” Was there such a legion?

“Hortulanus Praesidium,” he said as he walked along the wall, using his tail to brush over the object and putting everything in place. He sniffed out the bottle of amber liquid. “The Gardener Protectors. Everyone just calls us the Green Legion.”

“Well, thank you for helping me,” she said as she lay back, enjoying the cool air falling on her from the spirit above.

“We help everyone, if they can pay,” he said, and then added as he turned in her direction, “Putting the world back together isn’t so bad.”

“There’s a group in Equestria that’s like that, I think. ‘Followers of the Apocalypse’.”

“That’s a terrible name,” he said, brows knitting together. “Why not call themselves ‘Menders of the Apocalypse’?”

“I think it’s supposed to be ironic? I’m not really sure,” she said as she glanced at the spirit, rubbing her chest. “I’m censured. What does that mean? I thought censure was turning ponies into monsters.”

“Censure is… unhappiness,” Lumi said as he trotted back to her side and reached out towards the spirit in its little bowl. “The spirits are unhappy, so they make us unhappy. They’re… simple. I like them better than zebras, sometimes.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Uncle asked the same thing,” he said. “Depending on the shaman you ask, the answer is yes, no, or maybe.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” Scotch muttered. Did shamans deliberately obfuscate every straight answer?

“That is what Kivet said,” he said with that smile. “Exact same tone too.” He opened his eyes again, the smile slipping. “As far as I know, the truth is that no zebra knows the truth of spirits. They are. They will do things for us. They will do things to us. Most of the time they ignore us.” He sighed. “Mother and he were not happy I talked to the snow. Others were happy. Everyone likes someone else being the shaman. They said what an honor it was.”

“You talk to snow? I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow,” Scotch Tape said.

“I’m Sahaani. Where I come from, there’s always snow. Snow is peaceful, but dangerous. I didn’t understand at the time,” he said and then screwed up his face skeptically. “You’re a pony that can actually talk to spirits?”

“I guess? I’ve done it a couple of times for sure,” she said, looking up at the tiny golden snowflake in its bowl overhead. Slowly she sat up. Pythia wouldn’t help her, but maybe he would. “Can you tell me how do you talk to them?”

“I don’t know. You just do,” he said and then turned to the bowl. “Lumihautile. Could you please make a pretty picture for the pony on the ceiling in frost?”

“Lumihautile?” Scotch asked with a small smile. “Is that its name?” The flake immediately swirled and started to spin in its bowl.

“Yes. It’s old Sahaanish,” he replied. “When a spirit has a name, it’s a lot easier to manage. I’m just talking to this one spirit, rather than all the snow spirits in earshot.” He reached out a hoof towards the spirit. “Lumihautile is the first spirit I ever talked to.” The snowflake gave a little pirouette and Lumi reached down to one of the freezers under the counter and opened it up. Using the edge of his hoof, he scooped up a small snowball.

“What’s that for?” she asked, a little apprehensive. If he was blind, he couldn’t hit her with it, could he?

“It’s an offering,” he explained. “Spirits usually don’t do things for free, unless they’re really good friends. Lumihautile doesn’t have enough power to do anything without it.” He tossed the sphere into the air. The golden spirit flashed, and the sphere exploded into a chill cloud that rolled over the ceiling.

Scotch watched as the golden snowflake suddenly left its bowl and went flying over the roof of the trailer, leaving a trail of frost in its wake. She marveled as the roof of the trailer became covered in a dazzling display of white hoarfrost, forming curls and fans of glittering white on the roof of the trailer. “Beautiful!” Scotch gasped at the lace-like image, her breath fogging the air before her. She looked back to Lumi hanging his head, and she covered her mouth with her hooves. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad you like it,” he said quietly as the whirling, golden snowflake returned to its bowl.

“How did you learn how to be a shaman?” Scotch asked.

“Oh, I’m not a shaman. I just talk to spirits,” he answered, giving Scotch’s zebra worldview a hard ‘thunk’ of cognitive recalibration.

“But isn’t that what a shaman is? Someone that talks to spirits?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not all shamans do,” he said as he sat down. “A shaman’s like… like a career. You can talk to spirits and not be a shaman.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Well… um… what do you do?”

“I… generally follow people around into dangerous situations,” she said, her ears drooping as she realized how incredibly lame that was by the way her brows knit together, “and have problems with my lungs. That’s a thing that keeps happening.” And she was starting to wheeze a little.

Lumi must have heard, because he walked over to the infusion, carefully felt around for a clean cloth, and filtered the infusion into another glass, and passed it to her. The sharp tang of alcohol was mixed with a scent of… pine sap? What was this stuff? Still, she didn’t want to break from the topic now that she’d actually found someone like her willing to talk. She sipped it down, and coughed. “I can make this with water, right?”

“Sure. Just don’t eat it raw or you’ll get the trots,” he said. “Well, it’s like building something. I know how to make a foundation. I can do that. A shaman knows how to build a whole house. And everyone knows they build houses. And spirits know. Being a shaman is a big deal. Talking to spirits is the foundation for a shaman.”

Scotch frowned. “So… say inviting a bunch of spirits to a festival. That’s something a shaman does?”

“Exactly! I wouldn’t know how to start to do that. I have trouble just talking with one spirit. But spirits… and zebra too? Shamans are a really big deal. I’m just Lumi,” he said, spreading his hooves wide.

Scotch still wasn’t sure where the speaks-with-spirits/shaman line was. Pythia was treating them like one and the same. Lumi thought they were separate. “I need to talk to an adult about this,” she muttered. “Like a shaman shaman… one that doesn’t hate me.” She paused. “Do shamans teach?”

“Oh, sure. If a village has a shaman, it’s usually their job to teach the young. Our home didn’t. We were too small for a shaman, right on the border with Yak territory.” From the droop of his ears, he clearly didn’t like talking about it. Apparently Pythia hadn’t been wrong about being a teacher, if shamans were also teachers.

“What else do shamans do besides teach and talk to spirits?”

He seemed a little surprised by the question and rubbed his long mane as he pondered a moment. “Well… if someone needs something from a spirit, or if a spirit needs them to do something, they act as a go-between. Or if there’s a group of people arguing, they’re supposed to be fair and stuff. Of if something big happens, they’re supposed be a… what’s it called… witness! Or they give advice if someone wants it. Or tell people if spirits are mad. Or… well… all kinds of stuff.”

The alcohol was kindling a spreading warmth in her belly, but her breathing was still tight and wheezing. She fell back, concentrating on taking slow, deep breaths. Something was crackling inside her lungs, and she rubbed the faint scar on her chest. “Are you sure I was censured?”

“It was the first thing that Lumihautile noticed,” he said. “Snow isn’t good at healing past lowering fevers or numbing pain,” Lumi assured her. “Fortunately, Uncle had a number of healing potions especially for pneumonia and was able to syphon your lungs and give you antibiotic, but…” he trailed off and slumped. “The damage is spiritual. It’s a curse. It won’t kill you, but sicken you.”

“And there’s no way to fix censure?”

“No. My uncle… when I was censured…” he broke off, turning away from me. “I’m sorry. I should go. You’re going to need more lungwort if you’re leaving tomorrow. Just rest.”

She didn’t have breath to apologize as he left the trailer, so she fell back. “Lumihautile?” she said as she gazed at the little spirit back in its bowl. It hovered horizontal, spinning slowly back and forth. She imagined it was snoring.

Censured. She’d seen what had happened to Rice River, she expected censure to be like what happened to Niuhi. She’d thought that the effects of censure would be flashy. This… She took a deep breath and broke into a fit of coughing. Whether it was a curse or a result of inhaling dust, it was a real problem.

Exactly what she needed right now.

The piney alcohol… really, what was in that bottle… was already making her sleepy. It wasn’t hard for her to relax and let it sweep her away.

One thing was for sure: the Greens ran a tight ship. Very tight. A half dozen wagons had parked in the middle of a ruined park in a town built straddling the old road. Ancient ionic pillars rose in a circle around a large rock commemorating the start of the Old Road. Beyond lay a ‘town’ the size of a Manehattan suburb, almost completely consumed in razorgrass. It was even growing on the roofs of the buildings! Only this circle was clear, and she could only guess that some kind of magic in the road itself kept the pernicious weed at bay.

A half dozen green trailers were arranged in a circle, with a half dozen automatic turrets placed on the pillars facing both sides. From one cart floated a large green balloon with a bright, flashing green light dangling from the bottom. The green trailers and their steam tractors all appeared to be in top shape. Kivet’s medical trailer was open, and she watched as he and Lumi bandaged up some zebras. Another seemed specialized for repair. A third for food. A fourth for trade. The last two appeared to be for the legion’s supplies. Everything was very orderly for the two dozen zebras with the conifer brand.

“I don’t know how you knew it, Scotch, but when you got us on the road again, we were just able to get to the Greens before you died,” Majina said the next day, as she met her friends on the Whiskey Express. “You were unconscious and delirious. The whole next day, I was sure that any second you’d stop breathing. But we got you to the Greens and Precious and Charity haggled them down before they performed surgery.”

“Well, that night we broke camp, I talked to someone on the road,” Scotch started to say.

“Oh!” Majina sprung on her, grinning from ear to ear. “What was it? An old pony that gave mysterious advice? A talking spirit animal? A voice coming from a single ray of moonlight that only you could see?”

“Ah… the first one,” Scotch said, and Majina let out a whoop and started dancing on her hooves in glee. “It was a zebra who called himself Trailblazer. Told me to get moving or get dying.”

Pythia frowned at Scotch, eyes narrowed, then asked Majina suspiciously, “How’d you know? I didn’t see anything.”

“Oh, almost all the Old Road stories have some kind of mysterious stranger, magical animal, strange spirit, or whatnot on it!” She cheered brightly, “We’re an Old Road story! Whoo hooo!” Every Green Legion zebra and Wastelander visiting their camp was looking over at the ecstatic filly. “Come over here if you want to hear it!”

Precious grabbed her and pulled her down. “I thought we were supposed to be keeping a low profile?” she hissed.

“Oh, right,” Majina said, pouting a little as some of the scarred zebra seemed interested, but so too were a trio of Blood Legion over by the repair wagon. “Anyway, Precious, Charity, and I haggled them right away before they did a lot of medical stuff to you.”

“Well, I didn’t want another Galen thing to happen,” Precious said. “Last thing we need is to get stuck working another year to pay off someone else’s bill.”

“They wanted to take the Whiskey Express. I mean, how were the rest of us supposed to get anywhere if you kicked it?” Charity said, then gestured at the trailer. Their carefully collected supplies were now severely depleted. “As is, they practically skinned us of everything they could.”

“But are we safe?” Scotch asked as she peered at the other visitors to the Greens. A Blood Legion steam tractor with a trio of bored looking soldiers stand by as the Greens repaired it. One idly picked his nose, eating the contents as the Greens worked to mend a hole in the boiler.

“So long as no one breaks the Green truce,” Skylord muttered as he lounged on an old park bench, it’s surface so carved with glyph graffiti that it was a babble of names, messages, and carnal insults. “Once we’re out of sight, they couldn’t care less what happens to us. And they won’t let us just hang around for nothing.” He said as he finished leaving his own mark in the graffiti-ridden wood: ‘BLOOD SUCKS ASS’. He tilted a head over towards the Bloods. “They don’t seem to be looking for us.”

A tiny part of her wondered at that. Weren’t they at the top of the Blood Legion’s most wanted list? Then again, the legions were also huge. They’d probably had hundreds of priorities before she’d shown up. “I thought the legions hated each other.”

“Most do,” Skylord said evenly, keeping his eyes on the Blood Legion. “The Greens are a bunch of stuck up snobs thinking they’re better than the other legions because they can fix a wheel and patch a wound. You have no idea how tempting it is sometimes to want to use their stupid balloons to call in an artillery strike from thirty klicks away.” He then took a deep breath and sighed. “But we need them. They know it, and they’ll remind us all day about it, too.” He plucked at the wood. “Bloods are barbaric numbskulls. Whites are cowards who hide behind walls. Golds are greedy money-grubbing assholes.”

“And Irons are heartless bastards that will blow up an encampment from thirty kilometers away just to take them down a peg,” came Lumi’s voice. The Sahaani colt was so light on his hooves that Scotch hadn’t noticed his approach. “I have good ears,” he said, keeping his eyes closed.

“Okay, I don’t know who you are, kid, but you should know we are full up on travelling companions!” Precious said sharply then peered at Scotch. “Wait, this is your plan, isn’t it?”

“What plan?” Scotch blinked.

“To create a crusade of foals marching all across the zebra Wasteland, destroying our enemies with second-hand bad luck and happenstance.”

“Ooooh! Very dramatic! We can march all around the Wasteland righting wrongs. It’ll be a story for the ages!” Majina gasped. “We should totally do that.”

“Nope. We already have a quest, remember?” Pythia vetoed from the end of the table as she stared at the atlas and her star map. “Get to Roam. Find the Last Caesar’s High Shaman. Find out what happened with the Eye of the World.” She jabbed a hoof at Scotch Tape. “No wandering off on side quests.”

Charity scowled as she tried to follow the conversations, looking from one to the next, her ears flitting rapidly back and forth between everyone. “Wait. You want to take a test? For what?”

“Quest,” Majina translated. “She’s talking about our quest to find the Eye of the World.”

Lumi cocked his head and furrowed his brows. “I don’t know what that is.”

“That’s on the list,” she said, flipping to the back page of the atlas, where notes were written in tiny, precise little glyphs. “What is the Eye of the World? Where is it? Why was it blinded? Why was it ordered to be blinded? Was it actually blinded? How was it blinded? What are the consequences of it being blinded?” She gave a little smile. “I love having a nice, concise list of questions. Did I miss any? I feel like I’m missing one,” she noted as her customary frown returned.

“Well, that’s not my quest,” Charity said sourly after Majina translated for her. “Mine is to get back to my store and get things back on track. Saving the world just gets people killed. Count me out.”

“Trust us, that won’t be hard,” Pythia said with a snort.

“Well my quest is to tell the most amazing story that’s ever been told in the history of stories!” Majina said with a grin.

“I’d love to hear it!” Lumi said with a smile. Majina dashed over and glomped the poor colt, causing him to start in alarm, but Majina was simply on too good a roll to notice.

“Well it all started when we were in the basement going through Mama’s things… wait… should I start further back! He’s really going to need all the backstory to appreciate the context! So you see, there was this pony mare named Blackjack who–”

She was silenced as Charity levitated off her hooves. “We’ll die of old age before we get through that, and I need to see what we can barter.” Her lips twisted sourly around the word. “You can come and translate for me,” she said as she led Majina away from the table.

“Wait! But… there was a PipBuck… and a megaspell… and the moon… and… ungh!” the Zencori filly wailed as she was pulled away.

Lumi just blinked his glassy eyes. “Well. That sounded… interesting…” he said slowly once the pair were away from their picnic table.

“Watch out. She’s probably going to stalk you till she tells the whole thing,” Precious said with a snicker. “I can’t wait till she gets to the part where that alicorn dropped a boat on her.” She turned and regarded Scotch with a small smile, her eyes going soft. “That was when you said you didn’t care that I was half monster. That was the first time anyone was ever nice to me.”

“Half monster?” Lumi asked with a frown.

“Uh, doi? The scales? The fangs? The dragon tail. Are you bl…” she trailed off and waved a claw in the air before him. “You are blind!” she blurted.

“Precious,” Scotch chided, rubbing her chest as it started to get tight.

“Sorry, just… never seen anyone blind in the Wasteland before,” she said, staring at him.

“Well, now you have,” he replied evenly. “What’s your quest?” he asked Precious. “If your friends have theirs, what’s yours?”

“Me? A quest? That’s… I mean…” she spluttered as Lumi waited patiently. “Why, to become the richest dragonfilly in the world! Which shouldn’t be hard as I’m probably the only one in the world.” She said, her smile faltering, before quickly turning to Skylord. “How about you, turkeycat? Kill all the Blood?”

“Please. That’s not a quest. That’s an obligation,” Skylord muttered. “I just want to do my job. That’s it. No quest involved.”

“I just want…” Scotch rubbed her chest. “I don’t know if it’s a quest or not. I just want… something,” she finished lamely. The list was long and filled with multiple impossible things. Find out about this new Empire garbage. Find… something that was missing in her life.

“Well, I just wanted to give you this,” he said as he pulled out a package from his saddlebags. “It’s a half kilogram of dried lungwort,” he said, putting a paper wrapped brick on the table top. “What are you going to do now?”

“Head east. Cross the river. Get to Irontown where there’s civilized things like trains to get us where we need to go. It’s going to take us forever if we have to drive there,” Pythia muttered. “It’s already taking forever.”

“It’s been a few days,” Scotch protested.

“Plus a year! And we’re going deeper into Blood territory, in a direction that’s not Roam,” Pythia said with a scowl. “See? This is what I was afraid of when we stayed in Rice River! We’d get distracted and we’d never find it.”

“Hey, look at the brighter side! Maybe all this wandering around and doing random stuff will make us stronger so we can handle the big stuff when we get to it. You never know,” Scotch pointed out.

Skylord just shook his head slowly. “I’m wondering when you two decided it was a good idea to talk about our plans with someone we barely know.”

“Lumi’s okay,” Scotch insisted. “He talks to spirits, but isn’t a shaman,” she said pointedly at Pythia, who grunted sourly as she looked back at the atlas.

“Wait,” was her reply.

“Wait for what?” Lumi asked in bafflement.

“To be a shaman. Sooner or later you’ll be doing favors for people, and they’ll be coming to you for help with them, and you’ll be ‘Shaman Lumi’ before you stamp your hoof.”

“Do you really think so?” he said, straightening.

“Stars shine on me, he’s happy about it,” Pythia said as Charity and Majina returned.

“We are so boned,” Charity said, glancing back over her shoulder. “We’ve got enough coal for a day at the most. We need to do a scavenge run if we’re going to buy any more.”

“What?” Pythia blinked. “No! What did I say about side trips?”

“I don’t know. You must have said it in booga booga,” Charity replied. “Anyway, we need to hit somewhere close by for anything valuable, bring it back, and get at least a few good sacks of coal.”

“There’s nothing nearby,” Pythia pointed out, gesturing at the ruins. “You think none of these have been hit before?”

“Actually,” Lumi said brightly, “Kivet was talking about some factories that he wanted to salvage. I suppose if you got there first, you could sell it and make some money.”

“Money! I understood that! I agree with whatever the shaggy boy hunk suggested,” Charity said brightly, then narrowed her gaze. “What’d he suggest?”

Author's Notes:

Well, back in the saddle again. It's been way too long for this chapter to get out, but after a computer crash, Nanowrimo, the worst December since 1941, and the upcoming inaugeration, it's been a struggle to write anything at all. Sadly, in the delay, Hinds and Swicked have moved on to other things, and I wish them both the best. They're both more than welcome to come back. On good news, Heartshine has returned to the editing team, and has writen her own FoE story that is the first real sequel to Horizons: Speak. Also Icy Shake has stepped up to a full time editor. Wish him luck.
I'm not sure how much I like this chapter. It was a choice between getting it out now, or getting it out with 8 more pages tacked on in two weeks. Hopefully this will be fine.

First, I'd like to give thanks, as always, to Kkat for creating the world, and my editors for taking the time to make this worth reading. I'd also like to thank my patreons, who have been both generous and patient during these last three months. I couldn't go on without their support. Finally, I'd like to thank everyone that reads and comments. You're what makes this mean anything at all.

See you next chapter.